


Ladies' Night

by unknownsister



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M, Red Pants, Strippers & Strip Clubs, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-19
Updated: 2012-09-19
Packaged: 2017-11-14 13:56:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/515936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unknownsister/pseuds/unknownsister
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Sherlock is on a case and John is strapped for cash. Poison and strippers are involved. </p><p>An alternate first meeting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ladies' Night

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the September fuckyeahjohnlockfanfic x reapersun red pants challenge. 
> 
> This is a very hasty attempt at a case, it just felt too empty without one. I spent more time looking for appropriate poisons & their side effects than anything else! I've never written any Sherlock fic, but the challenge for this month lit a fire under me, so here we are. We're going to assume that John had a better therapist in this universe. Also, caveat - I've never been to a male strip club or seen Magic Mike. 
> 
> Forgive any OOC-ness, Americanisms, or various mistakes, for alas, I had no beta. I'm not even sure this revolves around the pants enough to be considered a proper entry. Hopefully you'll get some enjoyment out of it anyway!

Sherlock is in Hell. 

Hell with capital letters. Hell with every adjective for 'unpleasant' he can come up with. 

It is humid with the press of bodies backstage, too many people crammed into an unaccommodating space. Paint curls from the ceiling to reveal mold and Sherlock sneers in distaste as every surface he touches seems to be _moist_. He rams his hands in his pockets after releasing the stage door.

It's not just the herd backstage who are awful – the ones out front chirp and scrape at Sherlock's eardrums with their nattering. They're excited for the show, ready to grip and pull and - 

Not important. They can be ignored. Sherlock is looking for something. 

A clothes rack is shoved into the corner of the backstage area, right beside a floor to ceiling mirror, stretching along the wall for a few feet. Oily hand prints fog the surface where men have leaned against it, applying fake tans and sundry to enhance their appearance. Useless.

He presses his way through the crowd of men, and a few women, most of them garishly dressed, bright neons and gross parodies of professions. Sherlock tries not to touch any of them, especially the amateurs. They who reek a little too much of desperation for the money those harpies outside are clutching in their claws. 

The rack is cleared of people for the moment and Sherlock avoids looking at himself in the mirror. He snaps on a pair of latex gloves and starts methodically looking at each 'outfit' draping from the hangers. This takes time, time he doesn't really have here. He needs to apply a stripe of chemicals to the inside of each - 

“Knew I should have brought my gloves. These costumes are rank.” 

Sherlock stiffens, deciphering the stranger from tone – amateur, first timer, uncomfortable – before standing. The voice is incongruous with the person. Shorter, but standing up straight. He jumps from one interesting point on the man to the next, reaching his conclusions before the stranger sticks a solid hand in front of him. 

“John Watson.” 

Sherlock stares at his hand. 

John quickly drops it. 

“Oh, I should have guessed you're a germaphobe or something, what with the gloves and -” 

“This is an odd place for a doctor.” 

John snaps his mouth shut and levels a look at Sherlock, barely pausing. 

“You'll forgive me for saying, but I'm not the odd looking one here, mate.” 

Sherlock looks down at himself in mute surprise. Yes, he supposes – the coat might be slightly out of place at a strip club. 

“Unless you're planning on doing something interesting with that scarf, I'm not sure how much money you're going to make tonight.” 

John looks much more in place. He's dressed as a fireman, or as close to an approximation of a fireman a strip club can offer. The cheap yellow vinyl passing for his coat hangs like a rain poncho, but John is broad enough that it fills out. Tan trousers are held up with black suspenders over a white vest. He loosely holds a yellow helmet at his side. The boots appear to be his own. 

Sherlock is wasting time. 

He turns back to the clothes rack, dismissing John, who continues to annoyingly exist in his periphery. This task is impossible to complete with an audience if he wants to keep the percentage of suspicion leveled on him low. Sherlock contemplates rolling the costumes out the back door when John speaks again. 

“How did you know I was a doctor?” 

He doesn't sound angry, just curious, maybe a little impressed. Sherlock tries to lock his brain onto the task of searching through these clothes, the case! But he won't leave, maybe he'll leave if - 

“You reek of antiseptic, even over the stench in here, then the calluses when you held out your hand. Invalided from the army nearly a year ago. Living with your sibling. I suspect that's why you're so desperate for money that you've come here – you want to move out.”

John's face withdraws at 'desperate'. Perfect, he'll leave. 

But the sting transforms into curiosity and Sherlock is not sure how to deal with that. Give him yelling any day, he deals with that before his morning tea. But interest not stained with begrudging resentment or anger? He's working up to a really good insult to wipe away that curiosity when John idly reaches for the clothes rack. 

Sherlock slaps his hand out of the way with the back of his wrist, unthinking. They both freeze. John lightly grabs his own wrist. 

“That was rude.”

Yes, yes, leave! 

“But you proved what I was thinking – you're not looking for an outfit. No one would be possessive over these clothes. What are you doing?” 

Again with the curiosity and Sherlock can't help it, he ignores the hiss of deductions and impatience in his mind, and really looks at John Watson, finding no trace of anger. Maybe even a spark of challenge. 

He could lie. He is going to lie – tell John that he needs the perfect outfit out of this garbage heap. 

“One of these outfits is lined with enough poison to kill a man a hundred times over.” 

Sherlock frowns. That was the truth. Perhaps his brain was racing ahead again and thought telling this utter stranger crucial facts was the best course of action. John finally looks worried and grips the cuffs of his “coat”. 

Sherlock sighs perhaps a bit too dramatically.

“No, no – you'd be dead the instant you put it on, you're safe.” 

“So who are you, in here sniffing people -”

Sherlock bristles.

“-and looking for poison? Certainly not a … dancer.” 

They both grimace as a loud thumping that could be classified as war drums starts, bleeding through the curtains. The anxiety and excitement notches up a level in the backstage crowd and a few start shuffling towards the stage entrance to eye the competition. 

“Alright, single line, gentlemen!” 

The coordinator starts herding contestants into a queue. She reaches the pair of them, shoving John forward, forcing Sherlock backwards. She pauses in her round up to give Sherlock a raised eyebrow. He raises one back. 

“That what you're wearing?”

“Yes.” 

His reply could freeze ice. She shrugs and John covers his mouth to hide his laughter. Sherlock glares at him, but remarkably, this seems to only make John laugh harder. 

Incongruous with the rest of the population.

Especially tiresome is that the coordinator begins pushing them away from the rack, the case, his work. He locks his eyes on the rack and is therefore surprised to feel the tug on his coat sleeve. 

“What are you doing.” 

John doesn't hide his smile. 

“Come on, detective. I'm helping you blend in. Get in line.” 

“What makes you think I'm a detective?” 

“Aren't you supposed to be the smart one here? It doesn't take a bloody genius to figure that out!”

John laughs as they are shuffled to the other side of the stage entrance. Sherlock, frowning, follows and measures the milliseconds it will take him to reach the rack if the killer appears. Not a perfect scenario, as he would draw attention to himself if he was the only one out of line and carefully applying chemicals backstage at a strip club. He's already drawing too much attention with his non-outfit. 

“So your officers are on their way, right?” 

Sherlock looks down as John glances over his shoulder. He's balanced the ridiculous helmet at a jaunty angle that Sherlock absolutely does not find attractive. It's a helmet! He trains his eyes back across the stage. 

“What makes you say that?” 

John turns back to the blue smoke pouring across the stage and the first contestant overcompensating. 

“Well, you can't just leave poison that strong hanging about where anyone could get a hold of it.” 

“You can't?” 

Sherlock's answer is lofty and John shoots him a suspicious look. 

The music punches up another decibel and the screaming women surrounding the narrow stage are surely breaking the sound barrier. Sherlock leans close to John's ear and whispers. 

“Who said I was with the police?” 

He stays a beat longer than necessary, releasing a hot breath right behind John's ear. He thinks John might not have noticed, which would be alright – breathing against a stranger's neck was definitely not related to the case. 

When he pulls back, John turns his head to follow him, watching Sherlock's mouth. His own is open just the slightest bit. He notices Sherlock staring at him and clicks his mouth shut, turning back around without a word. 

At some point in Sherlock's hawk-like vigil, John starts a running commentary on the horrific dancers. Well, Sherlock assumes their horrific – he's not really watching them. He finds useless talking annoying in every circumstance, but John's voice is soothing in comparison to the rest of the noises pressing in around them. He finds his stare dropping to the back of John's head more than once. He watches him jump when the announcer comes over the squeaky P.A. 

“Alright, ladies! This next gent is here to light your fires!” 

“That doesn't even make sense. Aren't I meant to put them out?”

Sherlock snorts an involuntary laugh and shocks himself. The joke wasn't even that funny. But a small, very tiny part of him thinks it was worth it for the smile John turns on him as he turns to the flashing lights. 

All nervousness drops from John's body as he walks out onto the stage. He winks at catcalls and tips his ridiculous helmet at a few of the closer women. They're already waving money at him and he hasn't taken off a single garment. He turns his back to his audience and flings the helmet towards Sherlock who catches it with a huff. 

John's quick glance at him is filled with laughter. Sherlock just drops his eyes to the helmet, then passes it to the irrelevant man behind him. 

The coat is the first thing to go. Sherlock tries not to notice – he really does – but John is right there in his line of sight. John dips one shoulder low and the tacky yellow fabric falls to the crook of his elbow. He grips the pole in the middle of the stage and swings around once, letting the jacket drop off his other shoulder on the down spin. 

Sherlock is not the only one who gasps at the map of scars on John's shoulder, but he suspects no one in the room is now paying more attention to the man than Sherlock. 

Entry and exit wound, approximately 18 months old, slight infection by time of surgery –

Not enough details were gathered in the split second John had the shoulder turned towards him. Now he has to watch to get another glimpse. If only he could touch, he could know every detail in an instant. It takes every ounce of his will not to storm the stage and examine him. 

Despite the attention that is now obviously on his shoulder, John seems to turn the staring into a heightened sense of danger for those watching – this is a dangerous man who has seen dangerous things. He doesn't necessarily draw attention to the scars, giving him an air of self confidence and stoic humility even while popping his braces. 

The women can't throw their money at him fast enough. 

He gives the screamers a cheeky grin before turning his back to them and slowly bending straight over, knees locked, to untie his boots, drawing sighs and whistles as he presents a great view. He quickly toes out of them and lets the suspenders drop first off one shoulder then the other. One of the women reaches a little too far over the stage and tugs on one of them backwards, but John just unsnaps them quickly and she falls back into her brood to their ecstatic screeches. She clutches them like a prize and John sways his hips back to the middle of the stage, a natural. 

A natural? This man was the very picture of plain normalcy not ten minutes ago. Well, not quite plain; he had certainly piqued Sherlock's interest, but he couldn't quite define why. Here this man was a doctor, who had left his home to save men dying in the dust a thousand miles from home. Yet he was on a stage for an audience of strangers holding himself with the unselfconscious sensuality of a man half his age. Sherlock cannot tear his eyes from John Watson. 

John crosses his arms over his waist and tugs his vest up in one movement, rolling his torso as the garment is pulled off. He throws it into the audience before tucking his thumbs in the waistband of his trousers and walking towards the middle of the catwalk. 

He bends himself backwards and catches his weight on his good arm, giving a show of the muscles at play across his shoulder blades and bicep. He lowers himself on his back and rolls his head from one side to the other, grinning devilishly at the ladies on either side of him. Their five pound notes start turning into twenties. 

Sherlock hears a disgruntled groan behind him. He glares and the man holds up his hands. 

“Don't get mad at me, mate. You should be pissed at him – that's a tough act to follow, that is. He's not leaving any money for the rest of us!”

Sherlock turns his attention back in time to see John shoving two fingers in his mouth and spreading his legs slightly wider. He braces his bare feet on the floor and tugs the fingers out of his mouth to hook them in the top of his trousers again. 

A hush falls over the audience as John arches his back and hips off the floor, drawing down his trousers achingly slow. Sherlock feels his stomach dip as the awful material slides away to reveal shockingly red pants. Suddenly, his scarf and coat are much too hot to be wearing inside. He feels the overwhelming urge to bite the tendons straining on the side of John's neck. 

These pants seem to be perfectly made for John. They aren't too tight – just snug enough to pull taut across his arse when he drops his hips and rolls to his stomach, pushing backwards onto his knees in a wide, languorous stretch. His mouth parts on what Sherlock would assume to be a moan if he could hear him over the music and yelling. 

Imagining the sounds John would be making is almost as agonizing as watching him arch like a cat and slink across the stage, towards the pole and closer to Sherlock. John looks over his shoulder at the captivated audience before he rolls to his feet, locking his fingers together overhead for a full body stretch when he stands.

Another foreign wave of heat ripples through Sherlock, his mind unable to process the sudden inundation of thoughts this unassuming creature is planting there. He wants to trace his tongue flat across the dimples on John's lower back. He longs to drop to his knees and pull the heavy weight of John's cock into his mouth, make that red even darker as he sucks him through the material. He aches to grip that perfect bottom and snag his teeth in the waistband of those pants, slowly tug them down until he can bury his face right in the most intimate parts of the man. Saliva fills his mouth at the very idea.

Sherlock blinks and realises his hands are shaking minutely as John finally grips the pole and turns his back to the audience again, showcasing his best feature. He pushes his arse against the pole and makes a slow drag down to the floor, one hand gripping the metal above him, one hand tracing its way down his stomach as he slides towards a crouch. 

John rolls his head towards Sherlock's stage side and freezes. 

Sherlock cannot help but study every detail of John's face, while John seems helpless to look away from Sherlock, whatever expression the detective wears locking him into place. They stare at each other for what feels like minutes and Sherlock watches in mute wonder as the fake arousal of the stage seems to shift for John. His pupils dilate, the flush deepens across his cheeks and creeps down to his neck. Sherlock's gaze follows the path of John's hand sliding downwards and feels his mouth turn to cotton as he sees the swell of John's cock slowly rising to push against that damnable red. 

John notices his arousal at the same time as Sherlock, remembering exactly where they are as some of the women in the audience call for him to come back. He closes his mouth, looking slightly mortified before he garners back his stage face. He rolls to the other side of the pole and snaps the white waistband, winking at the women before rising gracefully to his feet. He manages to make even _that_ seductive. 

Sherlock sees him lift a foot to go towards his adoring public and collect his wages in the curve of his hips, but John goes not a step further. Immediately, all seduction drops from his pose before he tenses and springs towards the stage entrance opposite Sherlock. 

He has a moment to think that John's arse looks even better flexing with his running before he realises what is happening. He bounds across the stage in pursuit, ignoring the yowls of protest from the audience. 

Sherlock can see backstage past John – a young man, a late-comer, smiling, his arms outstretched and ready to put on the coat the coordinator is offering him. His back is turned to her and her expression is one of complete unrepentant bliss at what Sherlock knows she is about to do. 

Before he even has a chance to shout a warning, John is barreling into her midriff, knocking the young man out of the way in the process. John rolls and cracks his heel against the mirror while the woman gasps.

Her faces turns hard and ugly as she sits up, then a wash of panic follows as she realises what her palm rests on. 

The inside of the jacket. 

She pulls her hand away as if from a fire. Sherlock reaches her, drops to a crouch and jerks on her collar, yanking her face to him. 

“That will be the Batrachotoxin you're so fond of entering your bloodstream.”

Her eyelids close briefly before he can feel her body locking. She makes to speak, and Sherlock releases her in disgust as the convulsions set in and she starts to foam at the mouth. He stands as John kneels, gripping the woman's neck before she can hit the ground. 

Sherlock finds himself less interested in the woman dying and fascinated with the change that warps John's face from concerned to stone in the blink of a second, a study in contradictions. He tries his level best to hold the woman as she wracks violently from side to side, her heart already stopped from the highly potent poison. The aftershocks thickening through her muscles give her a few more spasms before she stills. 

John goes still as well. Sherlock watches him carefully. 

He methodically touches her neck, gently checking for a pulse before drawing her eyelids shut. He tucks his feet underneath himself and stands, shoulders a line of tension. Sherlock expects shock on his face, anger, some normal (boring) emotional outburst. 

Instead, John looks hurt, his eyes creasing sadly in the corners and Sherlock finds he wants to gather him up and smooth them away. He takes a step closer to John, but further away emotionally – lust is one thing to understand, but affection is something he has no experience with and if he is even feeling anything at all within such a short time with this man, Sherlock is in danger. His brain goes into lock down. 

Back to the case, back to the familiar, back to what he's good at. 

He shoots off a text to Lestrade before returning his focus to the woman. 

“She was an Amazon preservationist. Spent much of her time in a lab poking at poisonous frogs, her category was antidotes and chemical research of the poisons to further experimental medicine.” 

He pulled a pen out of the inside of his coat. Crouching next to her, he tucked the pen under her collar and pulled out a silver chain with a cross at the end. 

“Desperately religious. She just found out two weeks ago that her brother's been stripping on the side to help fund his decidedly not religious drug habit.”

He stood again, facing John. 

“She was probably already mentally unstable. The news pushed her to four murders in a fortnight. Each at a different club, always a young man who resembles her brother. Vicariously killing him. I just needed to catch her in the act. I couldn't gather enough solid evidence for the police to get a search warrant and they wouldn't be able to use anything if I broke into her flat.” 

Sherlock sniffs, already turning back to his phone. 

“What ever happened to thou shalt not kill?” 

“Selective religion is a way of life amongst even the most penitent. They worm through life by bending their own idiotic rules to fit what they think will be the quickest route to the pearly gates.” 

People start to gather and Sherlock flashes a fake detective ID, telling the gawking idiots that the police are on their way, stand back, don't touch anything. Someone runs to get the owner of the club. 

Sherlock clicks a few links on his phone, still attempting to ignore John, but finding it increasingly hard to as the focus of the case loses its razor edge, already being filed away as complete. 

“Shouldn't you find that lad?” 

John peeks around Sherlock to where the boy ran off. 

Sherlock makes the mistake of looking up from his phone and down the long line of John's back, to the curve of his arse, to those blasted _pants_. As soon as his eyes reach them, his mind reels with images of John onstage, legs spread. John with his fingers curling inside those y-fronts to grip himself as that mouth falls open and Sherlock wants to trace his cock around those lips. 

Once it starts, the images are like a punch to the gut – John on his knees, fingers inside himself. John on his back, legs wrapped around Sherlock's waist while he fucks him hard enough to hear the noises he couldn't make out onstage. 

These thoughts amplify tenfold when John looks up to Sherlock's face and sees the blatant arousal written there. Instead of backing away as Sherlock expects him to (there is a _dead woman_ on the floor, but he's never really bothered with appropriate behavior), John's (wonderful, fuckable) mouth slides into a grin and he straightens, eyes never leaving Sherlock's face. Standing this close to the man, the detective feels the tiniest grain of intimidation at the look John is giving him, which only serves to heighten his interest even more. No one does this to him, people barely look him in the eye and now here is this man doing that and so much more. They're mentally undressing each other while a woman lies dead and that is enough for Sherlock to decide he wants John to stick around. 

He is a challenge and a puzzle all in one neat, compact package and Sherlock is never one to turn down either. 

“This is what you do all the time, then?” 

John's tone is casual, but he startles when a heavy coat is dropped around his shoulders. He grips the edges of it and looks to Sherlock.

“No one is going to get any work done if they see you in those pants. And yes, this is what I do everyday. I'm a consulting detective for the Yard.” 

Lestrade comes through the door with his team as if on cue in some ghastly crime show, while the manager of the club comes through the opposite entrance, dragging the nearly-murdered boy from before. Sherlock never likes to stick around once his genius is done, but tonight, he is especially keen to make a swift exit. He turns John on his heel. 

“Come on, are you hungry? I always eat after a case.”

“Don't I have a statement to give?” 

“Lestrade understands, I already texted him all your details. You're more useful coming with me.” 

“I might need shoes. And my clothes. And all that money out there.” 

“We can arrange the shoes and clothes, but I don't think you'll find your money.” 

John pushes back against Sherlock nudging him forward. 

“What do you mean I won't find it?” 

Sherlock smirks. 

“You were making the other contestants quite cross with your show. Outshining anything they had in mind to perform, you might say.” 

Sure enough, when they reach the stage, John's clothes are still there, while the audience and the money have vanished. John frowns at the injustice.

“I just saved a man's life and I don't even get paid tonight.” 

“Isn't the heart warming sense of a job well done payment enough?” 

John snorts and slips on his trousers. 

“No, I almost had enough to move out by the end there.”

Sherlock watches John put on his boots, not sure of what he wants to say, another anomaly in itself. 

“I could... offer you another type of job, if you were looking for more gainful employment.”

“What, you mean looking for murderers?” 

“Sometimes.”

“What about thieves?” 

“More frequently, but less interesting.” 

John laughs and Sherlock feels it settle warmly in his stomach. 

“What kind of person thinks murders are more interesting?” 

Sherlock isn't sure what to say to that. But John didn't sound disgusted. He sounded more interested than Sherlock thinks he meant to. 

John makes Sherlock hold his own coat before pulling on his vest, then not protesting when Sherlock hands him the coat back. 

“Come on then. You can convince me over food. I'm much more liable to agree to something ridiculous if I have a warm meal on the table.” 

Sherlock matches John's grin as they sweep towards the exit. 

“Well, I've got my eye on this flat in central London...”


End file.
